Tolkien enthused about reading Stenton'sAnglo-Saxon England. A period filled with Question Marks, said Tolkien, and wished he had a time-machine. Of course, he said, with a mind wholly different from Stenton's he was attracted to things of racial and linguistic significance. Tolkien hoped his son could one day delve into the story of the origins of their peculiar people. Indeed of them in particular; barring the "Tolkien" (now a thin strand) he said that Christopher was a Mercian or Hwiccian on both sides.